[sub][h3]Doctor Quinn Howell[/h3][hr][/sub]

As the spritely voice answered his subtle inquisition, Dr. Howell tensed the muscles in his arms, abdomen, and thighs, and pushed his frame upward into a sitting position as his visuals were made aware of more people who had been seemingly awakened out of something similar to his own state of affairs (unless he was jumping to unruly and falsely thought of answers). It was during the explanation that the severe oddity of the disposition of which he had now found himself that he came to the embarrassing realization that he was nude. As a conservative man, the pod’s lap beneath his bare bum was unwarrantly distracting as his mind raced through theories for the extent of research and teeth that had been pulled to make [i]this[/i] possible.

There were doubts, though. His fingers were rubbing his forehead, now—noticing miraculously to the extent of which the memory of his death and perhaps even his entire life before the fatal blow could have been a false one. There was no scar, no bullet hole… He remembered being a man of some sort of intelligence, yet grasping the entirety of how his current positioning had befallen him was quite puzzling and a flag for questioning the truthfulness of the statements being given to him by a man he knew nothing of made all too much sense by everything he had been conceivably taught. And yet, the tale end of his brother’s presence, as if maybe he had been part of the memory, which had eluded him so vigorously upon his push to consciousness, was keeping him relatively calm as his mind continued scrambling to make sense of the science and technology being thrown at him much harder than the soft robe which had fallen into his pod.  It all seemed so believable despite the absurdity.

But, had  the memory of his brother even been real?

Of course, he had been. Dr. Howell’s mind wasn’t ready to dismiss his brother’s life as something fabricated. He doubted it ever would, which coincidentally lead him to believe the man’s answers.

And, so, [i]if[/i] the man was telling the truth—Dr. Howell’s eyes scanned the ceiling, the physiques of the other captives or patients, rather, as he mustered up enough hollow trust to endure the man as an honest one as opposed to the paranoid idea that something preposterous or unethical had sabotaged him, bestowed faux love for an imaginary family—then he was genuinely fascinated, giddy in the way a child would be if handed a lucrative amount of money to buy whatever candy he possible could carry out of the candy shop by himself. However, his eagerness was somewhat healthier than the desire of a child’s uncontrolled persistence to consume ungodly amounts of sugar and other such waxy preservative he generally avoided.

More than the death of his younger brother that had helped elevate his lust for knowledge, his own death and revival was coursing question after question after question of pure interest through his veins and awakening nerves. But first, Dr. Howell tucked his arms into the robe. The scent pressed through his nose as a token for a second chance of exploration and procedure experiments…

 A stark grin more stoic than normal, as piece by piece the moments, before his death, connected each other in a suspenseful playback of how his pride to live undoubtedly killed a man, suddenly caused the inquiring questions on the subject he had just been exposed to drift away from him.  Was he getting a second chance because he had been a good man? No, [i]no[/i], he had murdered a man. He knew the operation would fail, but he still did it…

Dr. Howell might have been lost for another half hour reviewing the past revelation of his first death if it were not for the jovially concerned tanned man, standing tall, confidently, going right to business, and questioning the affairs of Sink. The doctor’s dark eyes focused on the man, younger than him by facial features and bone structure, but he apparently was gliding through this transition of scientific necromancy much better than he himself was—and showing more awareness of the state of affairs the kingdom had been under than his own naïve self had been prior to whatever it was that was happening.

“I was dead for five  years,” he spoke to no one in particular, astonished that this technology existed so amazingly. His excitement, again by the thought of his brother, subdued. The heaviness he had been feeling earlier was still present but shifting in tone at the unfortunateness of not having held onto the elusive memory because it occurred to him that he had possibly been comfortable being dead--in the same place with his brother, again. Nevertheless, Dr. Howell generally was not someone who lived primarily for himself—except in those last minutes, which he now had the opportunity to correct (assuming the answers being given were all true, and judging by the younger, more assertive male, the truth was more than likely given).

The rope around his robe was tightened into a knot; fabric shifted over his body before he pulled himself out of the pod and let the bottom of his feet touch the cool ground beneath the soles of his feet. His vision scanned the area once more from a standing point of view, observing the machinery, the workings. His heart was thumping quickly, despite his calm face. He wanted answers, but first, realizing the important ones and categorizing them was necessary. It was a fascinating situation; very fascinating.